A MS. of this important work from the 14th century
was discovered at, Mt. Athos in Greece in 1842, by a learned Greek,
Minoïdes Mynas (who had been sent by M. Villemain, minister
of public instruction under Louis Philippe, to Greece in search of
MSS.), and deposited in the national library at Paris. The first book
had been long known among the works of Origen, but had justly been already denied to him by Huet
and De la Rue; the second and third, and beginning of the fourth, are
still wanting; the tenth lacks the conclusion. This work is now
universally ascribed to Hippolytus.

Döllinger (R. Cath., but since 1870 an
Old Cath.): Hippolytus und Callistus, oder
die röm. Kirche in der ersten Haelfte des dritten Jahrh.
Regensburg 1853. English translation by Alfred Plummer, Edinb. 1876
(360 pages). The most learned book on the subject. An apology for
Callistus and the Roman see, against Hippolytus the supposed first anti-Pope.

Chr. Wordsworth (Anglican): St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome in the earlier part of
the third century. London 1853. Second and greatly enlarged edition,
1880. With the Greek text and an English version of the 9th and 10th
books. The counter-part of Döllinger. An apology for Hippolytus against Callistus and the papacy.

I. Life Of Hippolytus. This
famous person has lived three lives, a real one in the third century as
an opponent of the popes of his day, a fictitious one in the middle
ages as a canonized saint, and a literary one in the nineteenth century
after the discovery of his long lost works against heresies. He was
undoubtedly one of the most learned and eminent scholars and
theologians of his time. The Roman church placed him in the number of
her saints and martyrs, little suspecting that he would come forward in
the nineteenth century as an accuser against her. But the statements of
the ancients respecting him are very obscure and confused. Certain it
is, that he received a thorough Grecian education, and, as he himself
says, in a fragment preserved by Photius, heard the discourses of Irenaeus (in Lyons or in Rome). His public life
falls in the end of the second century and the first three decennaries
of the third (about 198 to 236), and he belongs to the western church,
though he may have been, like Irenaeus, of
Oriental extraction. At all events he wrote all his books in Greek.14181418 Dr. Caspari
(III. 351 note 153) thinks it probable that Hippolytus came from the East to Rome in very early
youth, and grew up there as a member, and afterwards officer of the
Greek part of the Roman congregation. Lipsius (p. 40 sqq.) supposes
that Hippolytus was a native of Asia Minor,
and a pupil there of Irenaeus in 170. But
this is refuted by Harnack and Caspari (p. 409)418

Eusebius is the first
who mentions him, and he calls him indefinitely, bishop, and a
contemporary of Origen and Beryl of Bostra;
he evidently did not know where he was bishop, but he gives a list of
his works which he saw (probably in the library of Caesarea). Jerome
gives a more complete list of his writings, but no more definite
information as to his see, although he was well acquainted with Rome
and Pope Damasus. He calls him martyr, and couples him with the Roman
senator Apollonius. An old catalogue of the popes, the Catalogus
Liberianus (about a.d. 354), states that a "presbyter" Hippolytus was banished, together with the Roman bishop
Pontianus, about 235, to the unhealthy island of Sardinia, and that the
bodies of both were deposited on the same day (Aug. 13), Pontianus in
the cemetery of Callistus, Hippolytus on the
Via Tiburtina (where his statue was discovered in 1551). The
translation of Pontianus was effected by Pope Fabianus about 236 or
237. From this statement we would infer that Hippolytus died in the mines of Sardinia and was thus
counted a martyr, like all those confessors who died in prison. He may,
however, have returned and suffered martyrdom elsewhere. The next
account we have is from the Spanish poet Prudentius who wrote in the
beginning of the fifth century. He represents Hippolytus in poetic description as a Roman presbyter
(therein agreeing with the Liberian Catalogue) who belonged to the
Novatian party14191419 He calls it
schisma Novati, instead of Novatiani. The two
names are often confounded, especially by Greek writers including Eusebius.419(which, however, arose several
years after the death of Hippolytus), but in
the prospect of death regretted the schism exhorted his numerous
followers to return into the bosom of the catholic church, and then, in
bitter allusion to his name and to the mythical Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, was bound by the feet to
a team of wild horses and dragged to death over stock and stone. He
puts into his mouth his last words: "These steeds drag my limbs after
them; drag Thou, O Christ, my soul to Thyself."14201420 Ultima vox
autdita senis venerabilis haec est. "Hi rapiant artus, tu rape, Christe, animam."420 He places the scene of his
martyrdom at Ostia or Portus where the Prefect of Rome happened to be
at that time who condemned him for his Christian profession. Prudentius
also saw the subterranean grave-chapel in Rome and a picture which
represented his martyrdom (perhaps intended originally for the
mythological Hippolytus).14211421 No. xi. of the Peristephanon Liber. Plummer, in Append.
C. to Döllinger, p. 345-35l, gives the poem in full (246
lines) from Dressel’s text (1860). Baronius charged
Prudentius with confounding three different Hippolytis and transferring
the martyrdom of Hippolytus, the Roman
officer, guard, and disciple of St. Lawrence, upon the bishop of that
name. Döllinger severely analyses the legend of Prudentius,
and derives it from a picture of a martyr torn to pieces by horses,
which may have existed near the church of the martyr St. Lawrence (p.
58).421 But
as no such church is found in the early lists of Roman churches, it may
have been the church of St. Lawrence, the famous gridiron-martyr, which
adjoined the tomb of Hippolytus.
Notwithstanding the chronological error about the Novatian schism and the extreme improbability of such a
horrible death under Roman laws and customs, there is an important
element of truth in this legend, namely the schismatic position of
Hippolytus which suits the Philosophumena,
perhaps also his connection with Portus. The later tradition of the
catholic church (from the middle of the seventh century) makes him
bishop of Portus Romanus (now Porto) which lies at the Northern mouth
of the Tiber, opposite Ostia, about fifteen miles from Rome.14221422 So first the
Paschal Chronicle, and Anastasius.422 The
Greek writers, not strictly distinguishing the city from the
surrounding country, call him usually bishop of Rome.14231423 Salmon says:
’Of the fragments collected in De Lagardes edition the
majority are entitled merely of ’Hippolytus,’ or ’of
Hippolytus, bishop and
martyr,’ but about twenty describe him as
’bishop of Rome,’ and only three
place him elsewhere. The earliest author who can be named as so
describing him is Apollinaris in the fourth century .... Hippol.
likewise appears as pope and bishop of Rome in the Greek menologies,
and is also honored with the same title by the Syrian, Coptic, and
Abyssinian churches."See the authorities in Döllinger.423

These are the vague and conflicting traditions,
amounting to this that Hippolytus was an
eminent presbyter or bishop in Rome or the vicinity, in the early part
of the third century, that he wrote many learned works and died a
martyr in Sardinia or Ostia. So the matter stood when a discovery in
the sixteenth century shed new light on this mysterious person.

In the year 1551, a much mutilated marble statue,
now in the Lateran Museum, was exhumed at Rome near the basilica of St.
Lawrence on the Via Tiburtina (the road to Tivoli). This statue is not
mentioned indeed by Prudentius, and was perhaps originally designed for
an entirely different purpose, possibly for a Roman senator; but it is
at all events very ancient, probably from the middle of the third
century.14241424 The reasons
for this early age are: (1) The artistic character of the statue, which
ante-dates the decline of art, which began with Constantine. (2) The
paschal cycle, which gives the list of the paschal full moons
accurately for the years 217-223, but for the next eight years wrongly,
so that the table after that date became useless, and hence must have
been written soon after 222. (3) The Greek language of the inscription,
which nearly died out in Rome in the fourth century, and gave way to
the Latin as the language of the Roman church. Dr. Salmon fixes the
date of the erection of the statue at 235, very shortly after the
banishment of Hippolytus. A cast of the Hippolytus-statue is in the library of the Union
Theol. Seminary in New York, procured from Berlin through Professor
Piper.424
It represents a venerable man clothed with the Greek pallium and Roman
toga, seated in a bishop’s chair. On the back of the
cathedra are engraved in uncial letters the paschal cycle, or
easter-table of Hippolytus for seven series
of sixteen years, beginning with the first year of Alexander Severus
(222), and a list of writings, presumably written by the person whom
the statue represents. Among these writings is named a work On the All,
which is mentioned in the tenth book of the Philosophumena as a product
of the writer.14251425Περὶ
τοῦ
παντός. See the list
of books in the notes.425 This furnishes the key to the
authorship of that important work.

Much more important is the recent discovery and
publication (in 1851) of one of his works themselves, and that no doubt
the most valuable of them all, viz. the Philosophumena, or Refutation
of all Heresies. It is now almost universally acknowledged that this
work comes not from Origen, who never was a
bishop, nor from the antimontanistic and antichiliastic presbyter
Caius, but from Hippolytus; because, among
other reasons, the author, in accordance with the Hippolytus-statue, himself refers to a work On the All,
as his own, and because Hippolytus is
declared by the fathers to have written a work Adversus omnes
Haereses.14261426 On the chair
of the statue, it is true, the Philosophumena is not mentioned, and
cannot be concealed under the title Πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας,
which is connected by καί with the work against
Plato. But this silence is easily accounted for, partly from the
greater rarity of the book, partly from its offensive opposition to two
Roman popes.426
The entire matter of the work, too, agrees with the scattered
statements of antiquity respecting his ecclesiastical position; and at
the same time places that position in a much clearer light, and gives
us a better understanding of those statements.14271427 The
authorship of Hippolytus is proved or
conceded by Bunsen, Gieseler, Jacobi, Döllinger, Duncker,
Schneidewin, Caspari, Milman, Robertson, Wordsworth, Plummer, Salmon.
Cardinal Newman denies it on doctrinal grounds, but offers no solution.
The only rival claimants are Origen (so the
first editor, Miller, and Le Normant), and Cajus (so Baur and Cruice,
the latter hesitating between Caius and Tertullian). Origen is out of
the question, because of the difference of style and theology, and
because he was no bishop and no resident at Rome, but only a transient
visitor (under Zephyrinus, about 211). The only claim of Caius is the
remark of Photius, based on a marginal note in his MS., but doubted by
himself, that Caius wrote a work περὶ τοῦ
παντός and an
anti-heretical work called " The Labyrinth," and that he was " a
presbyter of Rome," and also declared by some " a bishop of the
heathen."But Caius was an anti-Chiliast, and an opponent of Montanism;
while Hippolytus was probably a Chiliast,
like Irenaeus, and accepted the Apocalypse as
Johannean, and sympathized with the disciplinary rigorism of the
Montanists, although he mildly opposed them. See Döllinger,
l. c. p. 250 sqq. (Engl. translation), Volkmar, l. c. p. 60-71; and
Wordsworth, l.c. p. 16-28. Two other writers have been proposed as
authors of the Philosophumena, but without a shadow of possibility,
namely Tertullian by the Abbé
Cruice, and the schismatic Novatian by the
Jesuit Torquati Armellini, in a dissertation De priscarefutatione
haereseon Origenis nomine ac philosophumenon
tituto recens vulgata, Rom.,1862 (quoted by Plummer, p. 354).427 The author of the Philosophumena
appears as one of the most prominent of the clergy in or near Rome in
the beginning of the third century; probably a bishop, since he reckons
himself among the successors of the apostles and the guardians of the
doctrine of the church. He took an active part in all the doctrinal and
ritual controversies of his time, but severely opposed the Roman
bishops Zephyrinus (202–218) and Callistus
(218–223), on account of their Patripassian leanings,
and their loose penitential discipline. The latter especially, who had
given public offence by his former mode of life, he attacked without
mercy and not without passion. He was, therefore, if not exactly a
schismatical counter-pope (as Döllinger supposes), yet the
head of a disaffected and schismatic party, orthodox in doctrine,
rigoristic in discipline, and thus very nearly allied to the Montanists
before him, and to the later schism of Novatian. It is for this reason the more remarkable, that
we have no account respecting the subsequent course of this movement,
except the later unreliable tradition, that Hippolytus finally returned into the bosom of the
catholic church, and expiated his schism by martyrdom, either in the
mines of Sardinia or near Rome (A. D. 235, or rather 236, under the
persecuting emperor Maximinus the Thracian).

II. His Writings. Hippolytus was the most learned divine and the most
voluminous writer of the Roman church in the third century; in fact the
first great scholar of that church, though like his teacher, Irenaeus, he used the Greek language exclusively.
This fact, together with his polemic attitude to the Roman bishops of
his day, accounts for the early disappearance of his works from the
remembrance of that church. He is not so much an original, productive
author, as a learned and skilful compiler. In the philosophical parts
of his Philosophumena he borrows largely from Sextus Empiricus, word
for word, without acknowledgment; and in the theological part from
Irenaeus. In doctrine he agrees, for the most
part, with Irenaeus, even to his chiliasm,
but is not his equal in discernment, depth, and moderation. He
repudiates philosophy, almost with Tertullian’s vehemence, as the source of
all heresies; yet he employs it to establish his own views. On the
subject of the trinity he assails Monarchianism, and advocates the
hypostasian theory with a zeal which brought down upon him the charge
of ditheism. His disciplinary principles are rigoristic and ascetic. In
this respect also he is akin to Tertullian,
though he places the Montanists, like the Quartodecimanians, but with
only a brief notice, among the heretics. His style is vigorous, but
careless and turgid. Caspari calls Hippolytus
"the Roman Origen." This is true as regards
learning and independence, but Origen had
more genius and moderation.

The principal work of Hippolytus is the Philosophumena or Refutation of all
Heresies. It is, next to the treatise of Irenaeus, the most instructive and important polemical
production of the ante-Nicene church, and sheds much new light, not
only upon the ancient heresies, and the development of the church
doctrine, but also upon the history of philosophy and the condition of
the Roman church in the beginning of the third century. It furthermore
affords valuable testimony to the genuineness of the Gospel of John,
both from the mouth of the author himself, and through his quotations
from the much earlier Gnostic Basilides, who was a later contemporary
of John (about a.d. 125). The composition falls some years after the
death of Callistus, between the years 223 and 235. The first of the ten
books gives an outline of the heathen philosophies which he regards as
the sources of all heresies; hence the title Philosophumena which
answers the first four books, but not the last six. It is not in the
Athos-MS., but was formerly known and incorporated in the works of
Origen. The second and third books, which are
wanting, treated probably of the heathen mysteries, and mathematical
and astrological theories. The fourth is occupied likewise with the
heathen astrology and magic, which must have exercised great influence,
particularly in Rome. In the fifth book the author comes to his proper
theme, the refutation of all the heresies from the times of the
apostles to his own. He takes up thirty-two in all, most of which,
however, are merely different branches of Gnosticism and Ebionism. He
simply states the heretical opinions from lost writings, without
introducing his own reflection, and refers them to the Greek
philosophy, mysticism, and magic, thinking them sufficiently refuted by
being traced to those heathen sources. The ninth book, in refuting the
doctrine of the Noëtians and Callistians, makes remarkable
disclosures of events in the Roman church. He represents Pope
Zephyrinus as a weak and ignorant man who gave aid and comfort to the
Patripassian heresy, and his successor Callistus, as a shrewd and
cunning manager who was once a slave, then a dishonest banker, and
became a bankrupt and convict, but worked himself into the good graces
of Zephyrinus and after his death obtained the object of his ambition,
the papal chair, taught heresy and ruined the discipline by extreme
leniency to offenders. Here the author shows himself a violent
partizan, and must be used with caution.

The tenth book, made use of by Theodoret, contains
a brief recapitulation and the author’s own confession
of faith, as a positive refutation of the heresies. The following is
the most important part relating to Christ:

"This Word (Logos) the Father sent forth in these
last days no longer to speak by a prophet, nor willing that He should
be only guessed at from obscure preaching, but bidding Him be
manifested face to face, in order that the world should reverence Him
when it beheld Him, not giving His commands in the person of a prophet,
nor alarming the soul by an angel, but Himself present who had
spoken.

"Him we know to have received a body from the
Virgin and to have refashioned the old man by a new creation, and to
have passed in His life through every age, in order that He might be a
law to every age, and by His presence exhibit His own humanity as a
pattern to all men,14281428 This idea is
borrowed from Irenaeus.428 and thus convince man that God made
nothing evil, and that man possesses free will, having in himself the
power of volition or non-volition, and being able to do both. Him we
know to have been a man of the same nature with ourselves.

"For, if He were not of the same nature, He would
in vain exhort us to imitate our Master. For if that man was of another
nature, why does He enjoin the same duties on me who am weak? And how
can He be good and just? But that He might be shown to be the same as
we, He underwent toil and consented to suffer hunger and thirst, and
rested in sleep, and did not refuse His passion, and became obedient
unto death, and manifested His resurrection, having consecrated in all
these things His own humanity, as first fruits, in order that thou when
suffering mayest not despair, acknowledging thyself a man of like
nature and waiting for the appearance of what thou gavest to Him.14291429 The reading
here is disputed.429

"Such is the true doctrine concerning the Deity, O
ye Greeks and Barbarians, Chaldaeans and Assyrians, Egyptians and
Africans, Indians and Ethiopians, Celts, and ye warlike Latins, and all
ye inhabitants of Europe, Asia, and Africa, whom I exhort, being a
disciple of the man-loving Word and myself a lover of men ( ). Come ye
and learn from us, who is the true God, and what is His well-ordered
workmanship, not heeding the sophistry of artificial speeches, nor the
vain professions of plagiarist heretics, but the grave simplicity of
unadorned truth. By this knowledge ye will escape the coming curse of
the judgment of fire, and the dark rayless aspect of Tartarus, never
illuminated by the voice of the Word ....

Therefore, O men, persist not in your enmity, nor
hesitate to retrace your steps. For Christ is the God who is over all (
, comp. Rom. 9:5), who commanded men to wash away sin [in baptism],14301430 The passage
is obscure: ὁς τὴν
ἁμαρτίαν
ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων
ἀποπλύνειν
προσέταξε.
Wordsworth translates: " who commanded us to wish away sin from man;"
Macmahon: " He has arranged to wash away sin from human beings."Bunsen
changes the reading thus: " For Christ is He whom the God of all has
ordered to wash away the sins of mankind."Hippolytus probably refers to the command to repent and
be baptized for the forgiveness of sin.430
regenerating the old man, having called him His image from the
beginning, showing by a figure His love to thee. If thou obeyest His
holy commandment and becomest an imitator in goodness of Him who is
good, thou wilt become like Him, being honored by Him. For God has a
need and craving for thee, having made thee divine for His glory."

Hippolytus wrote a large
number of other works, exegetical, chronological, polemical, and
homiletical, all in Greek, which are mostly lost, although considerable
fragments remain. He prepared the first continuous and detailed
commentaries on several books of the Scriptures, as the
Hexaëmeron (used by Ambrose), on Exodus, Psalms, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, the larger prophets (especially Daniel), Zechariah, also
on Matthew, Luke, and the Apocalypse. He pursued in exegesis the
allegorical method, like Origen, which suited
the taste of his age.

Among, his polemical works was one Against
Thirty-two Heresies, different from the Philosophumena, and described
by Photius as a "little book,"14311431βιβλιδάριον.
The more usual diminutive of βιβλίςor βίβλος is βιβλίδιον.431 and as a synopsis of lectures which
Hippolytus heard from Irenaeus. It must have been written in his early youth.
It began with the heresy of Dositheus and ended with that of
Noëtus.14321432 Lipsius, in
his Quellenkrilik des
Epiphanios, has made the extraordinary achievement of
a partial reconstruction of this work from unacknowledged extracts in
the anti-heretical writings of Epiphanius, Philaster, and Pseudo-Tertullian.432 His treatise Against Noëtus
which is still preserved, presupposes previous sections, and formed
probably the concluding part of that synopsis.14331433 As suggested
by Fabricius (T., 235), Neander (I. 682, Engl. ed.), and Lipsius. It
bears in the MS. the title "Homily of Hippolytus against the Heresy of one Noëtus"
ὁμιλία
Ἱππολ. εἰς
αἵρεσιν
Νοήτου
τινος, and was first printed by
Vossius in Latin, and then by Fabricius in Greek from a Vatican MS.
(vol. II. 5-20, in Latin, vol. I. 235-244), and by P. de Lagarde in
Greek (Hippol. Opera Gr. p. 43-57). Epiphanius made a mechanical use of
it. It presupposes preceding sections by beginning: "Certain others are
privily introducing another doctrine, having become disciple, ; of one
Noëtus." The only objection to the identification is that
Photius describes the entire work against thirty-two Heresies as a
little book (βιβλιδάριον).
Hence Lipsius suggests that this was not the suvntagma itself, but only
a summary of its contents, such as was frequently attached to
anti-heretical works. Döllinger (p. 191 sqq.) shows the
doctrinal agreement of the treatise against Noëtus with the
corresponding section of the Philosophumena, and finds both heretical
on the subject of the Trinity and the development of the Logos as a
subordinate Divine personality called into existence before the world
by an act of the Father’s will, which doctrine
afterwards became a main prop of Arianism. Döllinger finds
here the reason for the charge of partial Valentinianism raised against
Hippolytus, as his doctrine of the
origination of the Logos was confounded with the Gnostic emanation
theory.433 If not, it must have been the
conclusion of a special work against the Monarchian heretics,14341434 So Volkmar
(l.c. p. 165: "Der Cod. Vatic.
’Contra Noëtum’ ist der
Schluss nicht jener kürzeren Häreseologie,
sondern einer anderen, von Epiphanius noch vorgefundenen Schrift
desselben Hippolyt, wie es scheint, gegen alle
Monarchianer." Caspari (III. 400 sq.) decides for the
same view.434 but
no such work is mentioned.

The book On the Universe14351435Περὶ
τῆς τοῦ
παντὸς
αἰτίας (or
οὐσίας,
as Hippol. himself gives the title, Philos. X. 32 ed. D. and Schn.), or
Περὶ τοῦ
παντός(on the Hippolytus-statue). Greek and Latin in Fabricius I.
220-222. Greek in P. de Lagarde, p. 68-73. The book was a sort of
Christian cosmogony and offset to Plato’s Timaeus.435 was directed against Platonism.
It made all things consist of the four elements, earth, air, fire, and
water. Man is formed of all four elements, his soul, of air. But the
most important part of this book is a description of Hades, as an abode
under ground where the souls of the departed are detained until the day
of judgment: the righteous in a place of light and happiness called
Abraham’s Bosom; the wicked in a place of darkness and
misery; the two regions being separated by a great gulf. The entrance
is guarded by an archangel. On the judgment day the bodies of the
righteous will rise renewed and glorified, the bodies of the wicked
with all the diseases of their earthly life for everlasting punishment.
This description agrees substantially with the eschatology of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus,
and Tertullian.14361436 Comp.
Döllinger, p. 330 sqq. He connects the view of Hippolytus on the intermediate state with his chiliasm,
which does not admit that the souls of the righteous ever can attain to
the kingdom of heaven and the beatific vision before the resurrection.
Wordsworth on the other hand denies that Hippol. believed in a
millennium and "the Romish doctrine of Purgatory," and accepts his view
of Hades as agreeing with the Burial Office of the Church of England,
and the sermons of Bishop Bull on the state of departed souls. Hippol.
p. 210-216. He also gives, in Appendix A, p. 306-308, an addition to
the fragment of the book On the Universe, from a MS. in the Bodleian
library.436

The anonymous work called The Little Labyrinth,14371437ΣμικρὸςΛαβύρινθος(Theodoret,
Haer. Fa b. II. 5) or σπούδασμα
κατὰ τῆσ
Ἀρτέμωνος
αἱρέσεως
(Euseb. H. E. V. 28).437
mentioned by Eusebius and Theodoret as
directed against the rationalistic heresy of Artemon, is ascribed by
some to Hippolytus, by others to Caius. But
The Labyrinth mentioned by Photius as a work of Caius is different and
identical with the tenth book of the Philosophumena, which begins with
the words, "The labyrinth of heresies."14381438 Caspari,
III. 404 sq., identifies the two books.438

The lost tract on the Charismata14391439Περὶ
χαρισμάτων
άποστολικὴ
παράδοσις.
On the Hippolytus-statue.439 dealt
probably with the Montanistic claims to continued prophecy. Others make
it a collection of apostolical canons.

The book on Antichrist14401440Περὶ
τοῦ
σωτῆρος
ἡμῶν
Ἰησοῦ
Χριστοῦ
καὶ περὶ
άντιχρίστου
, in Fabricius I. 4-36 (Gr. and Lat.), and in P. de Lagarde, 1-36
(Greek only).440 which has been almost entirely
recovered by Gudius, represents Antichrist as the complete counterfeit
of Christ, explains Daniel’s four kingdoms as the
Babylonian, Median, Grecian, and Roman, and the apocalyptic number of
the beast as meaning , i.e., heathen Rome. This is one of the three
interpretations given by Irenaeus who,
however, preferred Teitan.

In a commentary on the Apocalypse14411441 Included in
Jerome’s list, and mentioned by Jacob of Edessa and by
Syncellus. Fragments from an Arabic Catena on the Apocalypse in
Lagarde’s Anal. Syr., Append. p. 24-27. See Salmon in
Smith and Wace, III. 105.441 he
gives another interpretation of the number, namely Dantialos (probably
because Antichrist was to descend from the tribe of Dan). The woman in
the twelfth chapter is the church; the sun with which she is clothed,
is our Lord; the moon, John the Baptist; the twelve stars, the twelve
apostles; the two wings on which she was to fly, hope and love.
Armageddon is the valley of Jehoshaphat. The five kings (17:13) are Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius,
Alexander, and his four successors; the sixth is the Roman empire, the
seventh will be Antichrist. In his commentary on Daniel he fixes the
consummation at a.d. 500, or A. M. 6000, on the assumption that Christ
appeared in the year of the world 5500, and that a sixth millennium
must yet be completed before the beginning of the millennial Sabbath,
which is prefigured by the divine rest after creation. This view, in
connection with his relation to Irenaeus, and
the omission of chiliasm from his list of heresies, makes it tolerably
certain that be was himself a chiliast, although he put off the
millennium to the sixth century after Christ.14421442 See
Döllinger, p. 330 sqq. (Engl. ed.)442

We conclude this section with an account of a
visit of Pope Alexander III. to the shrine of St. Hippolytus in the church of St. Denis in 1159, to which
his bones were transferred from Rome under Charlemagne.14431443 We are
indebted for this curious piece of information to Dr. Salmon, who
refers to Benson, in the "Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, "
I. 190.443 "On
the threshold of one of the chapels the Pope paused to ask, whose
relics it contained. ’Those of St. Hippolytus,’ was the answer. 'Non
credo, non credo,’ replied the infallible
authority, ’the bones of St. Hippolytus were never removed from the holy
city.’ But St. Hippolytus,
whose dry bones apparently had as little reverence for the spiritual
progeny of Zephyrinus and Callistus as the ancient
bishop’s tongue and pen had manifested towards these
saints themselves, was so very angry that be rumbled his bones inside
the reliquary with a noise like thunder. To what lengths he might have
gone if rattling had not sufficed we dare not conjecture. But the Pope,
falling on his knees, exclaimed in terror, I believe, O my Lord Hippolytus, I believe, pray be
quiet.’ And he built an altar of marble there to
appease the disquieted saint."

Notes.

The questions concerning the literary works of
Hippolytus, and especially his ecclesiastical
status are not yet sufficiently solved. We add a few additional
observations.

I. The List of Books on the back of the Hippolytus-statue has been discussed by Fabricius,
Cave, Döllinger, Wordsworth, and Volkmar. See the three
pictures of the statue with the inscriptions on both sides in
Fabricius, I. 36–38, and a facsimile of the book
titles in the frontispiece of Wordsworth’s work. It is
mutilated and reads—with the conjectural supplements
in brackets and a translation—as follows

[πρὸς τοὺς
Ἰουδἂ
ἰους.

Against the Jews.

[Περὶ
παρθε] νίας.

On Virginity.

[Or, perhaps, εἰς
παροιμίας]

[Or, On the Proverbs.]

[εἰς τοὺς
ψ] αλμούς.

On the Psalms.

[εἰς τὴν
ἐ] γγαστρίμυθον.

On the Ventriloquist [the witch at Endor?]

[ἀπολογία] ὑπὲρ τοῦ
κατὰ
Ἰωάννην

Apology of the Gospel according to John,

εὐαγγελίου
καὶ
ἀποκαλύψεως.

and the Apocalypse.

Περὶ
χαρισμάτων

On Spiritual Gifts.

ἀποστολικὴ
παράδοσις

Apostolic Tradition.

Χρονικῶν [sc. Βίβλος]

Chronicles [Book of]

πρὸς
Ἕλληνας,

Against the Greeks,

καὶ πρὸς
Πλάτωνα,

and against Plato,

ἤ καὶ
περὶ τοῦ
παντὸς

or also On the All.

προτρεπτικὸς
πρὸς
σεβήρειναν

A hortatory address to Severina. [Perhaps the
Empress Severa, second wife of Elogabalus]

Eusebius and Jerome give
also lists of the works of Hippolytus, some
being the same, some different, and among the latter both mention one
Against Heresies, which is probably identical with the Philosophumena.
On the Canon Pasch. of Hippol. see the tables in Fabricius, I.
137–140.

II. Was Hippolytus a
bishop, and where?

Hippolytus does not call
himself a bishop, nor a "bishop of Rome," but assumes episcopal
authority, and describes himself in the preface to the first book as "a
successor of the Apostles, a partaker with them in the same grace and
principal sacerdocy (ἀρχιεράτεια), and doctorship, and as numbered
among the guardians of the church." Such language is scarcely
applicable to a mere presbyter. He also exercised the power of
excommunication on certain followers of the Pope Callistus. But where
was his bishopric? This is to this day a point in dispute.

(1.) He was bishop of Portus, the seaport of Rome.
This is the traditional opinion in the Roman church since the seventh
century, and is advocated by Ruggieri (De Portuensi S. Hippolyti,
episcopi et martyris, Sede, Rom. 1771), Simon de Magistris (Acta
Martyrum ad Ostia Tiberina, etc. Rom. 1795), Baron Bunsen, Dean Milman,
and especially by Bishop Wordsworth. In the oldest accounts, however,
he is represented as a Roman "presbyter." Bunsen combined the two views
on the unproved assumption that already at that early period the Roman
suburban bishops, called cardinales episcopi, were at the same time
members of the Roman presbytery. In opposition to this Dr.
Döllinger maintains that there was no bishop in Portus
before the year 313 or 314; that Hippolytus
considered himself the rightful bishop of Rome, and that he could not
be simultaneously a member of the Roman presbytery and bishop of
Portus. But his chief argument is that from silence which bears with
equal force against his own theory. It is true that the first bishop of
Portus on record appears at the Synod of Arles, 314, where he signed
himself Gregorius episcopus de loco qui est in Portu Romano. The
episcopal see of Ostia was older, and its occupant had (according to
St. Augustin) always the privilege of
consecrating the bishop of Rome. But it is quite possible that Ostia
and Portus which were only divided by an island at the mouth of the
Tiber formed at first one diocese. Prudentius locates the martyrdom of
Hippolytus at Ostia or Portus (both are
mentioned in his poem). Moreover Portus was a more important place than
Döllinger will admit. The harbor whence the city derived its
name Portus (also Portus Ostien Portus Urbis, Portus Romae) was
constructed by the Emperor Claudius (perhaps Augustus, hence Portus
Augusti), enlarged by Nero and improved by Trajan (hence Portus
Trajani), and was the landing place of Ignatius on his voyage to Rome (Martyr. Ign. c. 6: τοῦ
καλουμένου
Πόρτου) where he met Christian brethren.
Constantine surrounded it with strong walls and towers. Ostia may have
been much more important as a commercial emporium and naval station
(see Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Geogr. vol. II
501–504); but Cavalier de Rossi, in the Bulletino di
Archeol., 1866, p. 37 (as quoted by Wordsworth, p. 264, secd ed.),
proves from 13 inscriptions that "the site and name of Portus are
celebrated in the records of the primitive [?] church," and that "the
name is more frequently commemorated than that of Ostia." The close
connection of Portus with Rome would easily account for the residence
of Hippolytus at Rome and for his designation
as Roman bishop. In later times the seven suburban bishops of the
vicinity of Rome were the suffragans of the Pope and consecrated him.
Finally, as the harbor of a large metropolis attracts strangers from
every nation and tongue, Hippolytus might
with propriety be called "bishop of the nations" (ἐπίσκοπος
ἑθνῶν). We conclude then that the
Portus-hypothesis is not impossible, though it cannot be proven.

(2.) He was bishop of the Arabian Portus Romanus,
now Aden on the Red Sea. This was the opinion of Stephen Le Moyne
(1685), adopted by Cave, Tillemont, and Basnage, but now universally
given up as a baseless conjecture, which rests on a misapprehension of
Euseb. VI. 20, where Hippolytus accidentally
collocated with Beryllus, bishop of Bostra in Arabia. Adan is nowhere
mentioned as an episcopal see, and our Hippolytus belonged to the West, although he may have
been of eastern origin, like Irenaeus.

(3.) Rome. Hippolytus
was no less than the first Anti-Pope and claimed to be the legitimate
bishop of Rome. This is the theory of Döllinger, derived
from the Philosophumena and defended with much learning and acumen. The
author of the Philosophumena was undoubtedly a resident of Rome, claims
episcopal dignity, never recognized Callistus as bishop, but treated
him merely as the head of a heretical school (διδασκαλεῖον) or sect, calls his adherents
"Callistians," some of whom he had excommunicated, but admits that
Callistus had aspired to the episcopal throne and "imagined himself to
have obtained" the object of his ambition after the death of
Zephyrinus, and that his school formed the majority and claimed to be
the catholic church Callistus on his part charged Hippolytus, on account of his view of the independent
personality of the Logos, with the heresy of ditheism (a charge which
stung him to the quick), and probably proceeded to excommunication. All
this looks towards an open schism. This would explain the fact that
Hippolytus was acknowledged in Rome only as a
presbyter, while in the East he was widely known as bishop, and even as
bishop of Rome. Dr. Döllinger assumes that the schism
continued to the pontificate of Pontianus, the successor of Callistus,
was the cause of the banishment of the two rival bishops to the
pestilential island of Sardinia (in 235), and brought to a close by
their resignation and reconciliation; hence their bones were brought
back to Rome and solemnly deposited on the same day. Their death in
exile was counted equivalent to martyrdom. Dr. Caspari of Christiania
who has shed much light on the writings of Hippolytus, likewise believes that the difficulty between
Hippolytus and Callistus resulted in an open
schism and mutual excommunication (l. c. III. 330). Langen (Gesch. der röm.
Kirche, Bonn. 1881, p. 229) is inclined to accept
Döllinger’s conclusion as at least
probable.

This theory is plausible and almost forced upon us
by the Philosophumena, but without any solid support outside of that
polemical work. History is absolutely silent about an Anti-Pope before
Novatianus, who appeared fifteen years after
the death of Hippolytus and shook the whole
church by his schism (251), although he was far less conspicuous as a
scholar and writer. A schism extending through three pontificates (for
Hippolytus opposed Zephyrinus as well as
Callistus) could not be hidden and so soon be forgotten, especially by
Rome which has a long memory of injuries done to the chair of St. Peter
and looks upon rebellion against authority as the greatest sin. The
name of Hippolytus is not found in any list
of Popes and Anti-Popes, Greek or Roman, while that of Callistus occurs
in all. Even Jerome who spent over twenty years from about 350 to 372,
and afterwards four more years in Rome and was intimate with Pope
Damasus, knew nothing of the see of Hippolytus, although he knew some of his writings. It
seems incredible that an Anti-Pope should ever have been canonized by
Rome as a saint and martyr. It is much easier to conceive that the
divines of the distant East were mistaken. The oldest authority which
Döllinger adduces for the designation "bishop of Rome," that
of Presbyter Eustratius of Constantinople about a.d. 582 (see p. 84),
is not much older than the designation of Hippolytus as bishop of Portus, and of no more critical
value.

(4.) Dr. Salmon offers a modification of the
Döllinger-hypothesis by assuming that Hippolytus was a sort of independent bishop of a
Greek-speaking congregation in Rome. He thus explains the enigmatical
expression ἐθνῶν
ἐπισκοπος,which Photius applies to Caius,
but which probably belongs to Hippolytus. But
history knows nothing of two independent and legitimate bishops in the
city of Rome. Moreover there still remains the difficulty that Hippolytus notwithstanding his open resistance rose
afterwards to such high honors in the papal church. We can only offer
the following considerations as a partial solution: first, that he
wrote in Greek which died out in Rome, so that his books became
unknown; secondly, that aside from those attacks he did, like the
schismatic Tertullian, eminent service to the
church by his learning and championship of orthodoxy and churchly
piety; and lastly, that be was believed (as we learn from Prudentius)
to have repented of his schism and, like Cyprian, wiped out his sin by his martyrdom.

III. But no matter whether Hippolytus was bishop or presbyter in Rome or Portus, he
stands out an irrefutable witness against the claims of an infallible
papacy which was entirely unknown in the third century. No wonder that
Roman divines of the nineteenth century (with the exception of
Döllinger who seventeen years after he wrote his book on
Hippolytus seceded from Rome in consequence
of the Vatican decree of infallibility) deny his authorship of this to
them most obnoxious book. The Abbé Cruice ascribes it to
Caius or Tertullian, the Jesuit Armellini to
Novatian, and de Rossi (1866) hesitatingly to
Tertullian, who, however, was no resident of
Rome, but of Carthage. Cardinal Newman declares it "simply incredible"
that a man so singularly honored as St. Hippolytus should be the author of "that malignant libel
on his contemporary popes," who did not scruple "in set words to call
Pope Zephyrinus a weak and venal dunce, and Pope Callistus a
sacrilegious swindler, an infamous convict, and an heresiarch ex
cathedra." (Tracts, Theological and Ecclesiastical, 1874, p. 222,
quoted by Plummer, p. xiv. and 340.) But he offers no solution, nor can
he. Dogma versus history is as unavailing as the
pope’s bull against the comet. Nor is Hippolytus, or whoever wrote that "malignant libel "alone
in his position. The most eminent ante-Nicene fathers, and the very
ones who laid the foundations of the catholic system, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian (not to speak of Origen, and of Novatian, the
Anti-Pope), protested on various grounds against Rome. And it is a
remarkable fact that the learned Dr. Döllinger who, in 1853,
so ably defended the Roman see against the charges of Hippolytus should, in 1870, have assumed a position not
unlike that of Hippolytus, against the error
of p

1418 Dr. Caspari
(III. 351 note 153) thinks it probable that Hippolytus came from the East to Rome in very early
youth, and grew up there as a member, and afterwards officer of the
Greek part of the Roman congregation. Lipsius (p. 40 sqq.) supposes
that Hippolytus was a native of Asia Minor,
and a pupil there of Irenaeus in 170. But
this is refuted by Harnack and Caspari (p. 409)

1419 He calls it
schisma Novati, instead of Novatiani. The two
names are often confounded, especially by Greek writers including Eusebius.

1421 No. xi. of the Peristephanon Liber. Plummer, in Append.
C. to Döllinger, p. 345-35l, gives the poem in full (246
lines) from Dressel’s text (1860). Baronius charged
Prudentius with confounding three different Hippolytis and transferring
the martyrdom of Hippolytus, the Roman
officer, guard, and disciple of St. Lawrence, upon the bishop of that
name. Döllinger severely analyses the legend of Prudentius,
and derives it from a picture of a martyr torn to pieces by horses,
which may have existed near the church of the martyr St. Lawrence (p.
58).

1423 Salmon says:
’Of the fragments collected in De Lagardes edition the
majority are entitled merely of ’Hippolytus,’ or ’of
Hippolytus, bishop and
martyr,’ but about twenty describe him as
’bishop of Rome,’ and only three
place him elsewhere. The earliest author who can be named as so
describing him is Apollinaris in the fourth century .... Hippol.
likewise appears as pope and bishop of Rome in the Greek menologies,
and is also honored with the same title by the Syrian, Coptic, and
Abyssinian churches."See the authorities in Döllinger.

1424 The reasons
for this early age are: (1) The artistic character of the statue, which
ante-dates the decline of art, which began with Constantine. (2) The
paschal cycle, which gives the list of the paschal full moons
accurately for the years 217-223, but for the next eight years wrongly,
so that the table after that date became useless, and hence must have
been written soon after 222. (3) The Greek language of the inscription,
which nearly died out in Rome in the fourth century, and gave way to
the Latin as the language of the Roman church. Dr. Salmon fixes the
date of the erection of the statue at 235, very shortly after the
banishment of Hippolytus. A cast of the Hippolytus-statue is in the library of the Union
Theol. Seminary in New York, procured from Berlin through Professor
Piper.

1426 On the chair
of the statue, it is true, the Philosophumena is not mentioned, and
cannot be concealed under the title Πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας,
which is connected by καί with the work against
Plato. But this silence is easily accounted for, partly from the
greater rarity of the book, partly from its offensive opposition to two
Roman popes.

1427 The
authorship of Hippolytus is proved or
conceded by Bunsen, Gieseler, Jacobi, Döllinger, Duncker,
Schneidewin, Caspari, Milman, Robertson, Wordsworth, Plummer, Salmon.
Cardinal Newman denies it on doctrinal grounds, but offers no solution.
The only rival claimants are Origen (so the
first editor, Miller, and Le Normant), and Cajus (so Baur and Cruice,
the latter hesitating between Caius and Tertullian). Origen is out of
the question, because of the difference of style and theology, and
because he was no bishop and no resident at Rome, but only a transient
visitor (under Zephyrinus, about 211). The only claim of Caius is the
remark of Photius, based on a marginal note in his MS., but doubted by
himself, that Caius wrote a work περὶ τοῦ
παντός and an
anti-heretical work called " The Labyrinth," and that he was " a
presbyter of Rome," and also declared by some " a bishop of the
heathen."But Caius was an anti-Chiliast, and an opponent of Montanism;
while Hippolytus was probably a Chiliast,
like Irenaeus, and accepted the Apocalypse as
Johannean, and sympathized with the disciplinary rigorism of the
Montanists, although he mildly opposed them. See Döllinger,
l. c. p. 250 sqq. (Engl. translation), Volkmar, l. c. p. 60-71; and
Wordsworth, l.c. p. 16-28. Two other writers have been proposed as
authors of the Philosophumena, but without a shadow of possibility,
namely Tertullian by the Abbé
Cruice, and the schismatic Novatian by the
Jesuit Torquati Armellini, in a dissertation De priscarefutatione
haereseon Origenis nomine ac philosophumenon
tituto recens vulgata, Rom.,1862 (quoted by Plummer, p. 354).

1430 The passage
is obscure: ὁς τὴν
ἁμαρτίαν
ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων
ἀποπλύνειν
προσέταξε.
Wordsworth translates: " who commanded us to wish away sin from man;"
Macmahon: " He has arranged to wash away sin from human beings."Bunsen
changes the reading thus: " For Christ is He whom the God of all has
ordered to wash away the sins of mankind."Hippolytus probably refers to the command to repent and
be baptized for the forgiveness of sin.

1431βιβλιδάριον.
The more usual diminutive of βιβλίςor βίβλος is βιβλίδιον.

1432 Lipsius, in
his Quellenkrilik des
Epiphanios, has made the extraordinary achievement of
a partial reconstruction of this work from unacknowledged extracts in
the anti-heretical writings of Epiphanius, Philaster, and Pseudo-Tertullian.

1433 As suggested
by Fabricius (T., 235), Neander (I. 682, Engl. ed.), and Lipsius. It
bears in the MS. the title "Homily of Hippolytus against the Heresy of one Noëtus"
ὁμιλία
Ἱππολ. εἰς
αἵρεσιν
Νοήτου
τινος, and was first printed by
Vossius in Latin, and then by Fabricius in Greek from a Vatican MS.
(vol. II. 5-20, in Latin, vol. I. 235-244), and by P. de Lagarde in
Greek (Hippol. Opera Gr. p. 43-57). Epiphanius made a mechanical use of
it. It presupposes preceding sections by beginning: "Certain others are
privily introducing another doctrine, having become disciple, ; of one
Noëtus." The only objection to the identification is that
Photius describes the entire work against thirty-two Heresies as a
little book (βιβλιδάριον).
Hence Lipsius suggests that this was not the suvntagma itself, but only
a summary of its contents, such as was frequently attached to
anti-heretical works. Döllinger (p. 191 sqq.) shows the
doctrinal agreement of the treatise against Noëtus with the
corresponding section of the Philosophumena, and finds both heretical
on the subject of the Trinity and the development of the Logos as a
subordinate Divine personality called into existence before the world
by an act of the Father’s will, which doctrine
afterwards became a main prop of Arianism. Döllinger finds
here the reason for the charge of partial Valentinianism raised against
Hippolytus, as his doctrine of the
origination of the Logos was confounded with the Gnostic emanation
theory.

1435Περὶ
τῆς τοῦ
παντὸς
αἰτίας (or
οὐσίας,
as Hippol. himself gives the title, Philos. X. 32 ed. D. and Schn.), or
Περὶ τοῦ
παντός(on the Hippolytus-statue). Greek and Latin in Fabricius I.
220-222. Greek in P. de Lagarde, p. 68-73. The book was a sort of
Christian cosmogony and offset to Plato’s Timaeus.

1436 Comp.
Döllinger, p. 330 sqq. He connects the view of Hippolytus on the intermediate state with his chiliasm,
which does not admit that the souls of the righteous ever can attain to
the kingdom of heaven and the beatific vision before the resurrection.
Wordsworth on the other hand denies that Hippol. believed in a
millennium and "the Romish doctrine of Purgatory," and accepts his view
of Hades as agreeing with the Burial Office of the Church of England,
and the sermons of Bishop Bull on the state of departed souls. Hippol.
p. 210-216. He also gives, in Appendix A, p. 306-308, an addition to
the fragment of the book On the Universe, from a MS. in the Bodleian
library.

1441 Included in
Jerome’s list, and mentioned by Jacob of Edessa and by
Syncellus. Fragments from an Arabic Catena on the Apocalypse in
Lagarde’s Anal. Syr., Append. p. 24-27. See Salmon in
Smith and Wace, III. 105.